1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to integrated optical systems and, more particularly, to a widely tunable and integrated optical system and method that can be used to make widely tunable optical devices, such as filters, emitters and receivers.
2. Background of the Related Art
Broadly tunable optical devices, such as broadly tunable semiconductor lasers, optical filters, optical receivers, and optical wavelength monitoring are desired for various optical communication applications, such as optical networking, wavelength-division-multiplexing (WDM) and other telecommunications applications.
The tremendous growth in network traffic, primarily due to the rapid growth of the internet, is creating a need for fast tunable optical devices that can be used in optical networks, such as WDM networks. Thus, there is a continuing need for optical devices that are tunable and wavelength agile over a broad wavelength range, and that can be integrated with other devices on a common chip.
The above references are incorporated by reference herein where appropriate for appropriate teachings of additional or alternative details, features and/or technical background.
An object of the invention is to solve at least the above problems and/or disadvantages and to provide at least the advantages described hereinafter.
The present invention provides tunable optical system and method that exhibits a broader tuning range with fewer components than prior art tunable optical systems. The tunable optical system of the present invention includes a plurality of wavelength routers, each having a different optical channel resolution, optically coupled to a plurality of optical amplifier arrays. The free spectral range of each of the second and subsequent wavelength routers is equal to a total bandwidth of one of its respective grating orders. The system is tuned by selectively activating optical amplifiers in each of the optical amplifier arrays. The tunable optical system of the present invention can be used to make a variety of tunable optical devices such as, for example, tunable semiconductor lasers, receivers and filters.
Additional advantages, objects, and features of the invention will be set forth in part in the description which follows and in part will become apparent to those having ordinary skill in the art upon examination of the following or may be learned from practice of the invention. The objects and advantages of the invention may be realized and attained as particularly pointed out in the appended claims.